


Demons

by Saffron89



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Illness, Nightmares, Self-Harm, WinterShock - Freeform, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 15:50:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1232230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saffron89/pseuds/Saffron89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A "five times" style fic. Four times Bucky rescued Darcy from her Demons and one time she chased away his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Demons

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware of some semi-vivid descriptions of mental health issues.  
> Triggers for self-harm, nightmares and cutting.  
> The tense will shift through the vignettes. Sorry if this bothers anyone.
> 
> Much love.

1.  
The first time Bucky finds her like that, Darcy is cowering in the dark corner of her bedroom, head on her knees, smears of blood visible on her bare shins. She had been missing for two days before Jane had mentioned anything, distraught and blaming herself for Darcy’s disappearance. No one would say it to her face, but Jane shouldered partial responsibility; she had been Darcy’s lifeline, and when Thor suddenly reappeared with intentions of remaining on Earth, Darcy had been all but forgotten. A broken doll tossed aside. The other Avengers had rallied around her, taking her out, movies, mini-golf, drinks, and she smiled happily, her usual bubbly self. No one had seen Darcy cracking. 

No one except Bucky. 

Bucky had grown up in the boys home with Steve, he knew heartbreak, and he knew what it was like to feel as though everything you loved had left you behind. He knew from Darcy’s S.H.I.E.L.D file that she had been a runaway; abused and starving, she had made her way through most of the Eastern seaboard as a pick pocket and a thief, doing whatever she had to in order to survive. She had been Jane’s intern for nearly six months before anyone figured out that she was not actually enrolled in classes, but only looking for a roof over her head and something to do. Jane, not willing to lose the only person who had put up with her and been moderately useful, applied to every scholarship available in Darcy’s name, and put the rest up herself, hell bent on putting Darcy through University. To Darcy, Jane was the first person who cared about her, genuinely, and she loved Jane. Jane was the closest thing to family that Darcy had.

Bucky sunk to his knees beside the shuddering form, moving slowly to sit himself beside her. He was already prepared with a warm wash cloth, and after gently prying the small pocket knife from Darcy’s pale palm and tucking it into his pocket, he began to dab at the blood on her legs. Taking one small hand into his own, he turned the palm skyward and dabbed at the small, thin slashes that marred the smooth pale flesh of her wrists. He didn’t say a word; his experience told him that words were the last thing Darcy needed right now. Setting the cloth beside him, Bucky pulled Darcy into his lap, her small frame still shaking as he tucked her head under his chin, and held her close, like a child. The tears finally poured from her storm coloured eyes as she wound her firsts into his shirt, and he tightened his embrace, stilling the shudders, and letting her cry into his chest. 

**  
2.  
Bucky knew a thing or two about masks; he masked his fear of war in a confident swagger, his bitter mortality in a mask of indifference, and then, as the Winter Soldier, a literal mask to conceal his true identity. Bucky knew masks when he saw them, and he knew when a mask was cracking. 

For all her smiles and sass, her witty rapport with the members of the Avengers, and her batted eyelashes, Bucky could see Darcy shaking. Sometimes it was a fleeting moment in her grey-green doe eyes, or the way her teeth caught her bottom lip when she thought no one was watching; subtle signs missed by anyone who wasn’t looking for them. Other times, it was more pronounced: missed meals, unexplained absences, or the large black circles under those same stormy eyes, caked in cosmetics to hide them from her team. Those who would praise selflessness as a virtue would have done well to watch the lights dim in Darcy’s eyes as she gave the team her all, and expected nothing in return. She was so young to shoulder so much responsibility; a barely-out-of-college political science major who was suddenly thrust into the world of intergalactic espionage. She was mission support, secretary, gopher, and cheerleader. She dished out coffee and paperwork as often as she dished out consoling hugs and kind words, and sat at bedsides when things went wrong. Darcy was their backbone, and she was breaking. 

When she finally cracks, he’s ready, standing silently as she shrieks at him, hurling vitriol and venom. Her words aren’t for him, he knows that, he bears the brunt of her rage and in the end, when she’s reduced soul shattering sobs, he holds her tight, silencing her apologies with a chaste kiss, a silent communication between them that he do everything in his power to make everything alright. When she smiles against his kiss, he knows that maybe, just maybe, she believes him.

**  
3.  
It’s months before she slips again.

Her connection to the team goes dead in a hail of gunfire and she screams. She’s frantic, screaming for Hill and Coulson as she tries desperately to reconnect with the Avengers. The tech team scrambles, shoving Darcy out of the way as they pull at wires, fidget with knobs and generally reduce her to a waste of space. 

She rubs her crossed arms compulsively, tugging her sleeves over the now-healed scars on her wrists as she struggles against the tears. Huddling in the corner, she waits, obsessing over her last moments of communication with Cap and Tony, terrified her directions had led them into the ambush. 

It’s hours before the team hears anything, and Darcy crumbles; it wasn’t good news. No fatalities, but Steve was badly injured and being transported to SHIELD for assessment. She didn’t wait for Coulson’s all-clear.

This time Bucky finds her folded into a hospital chair, her eyes rimmed red with smears of black, mascara running down her cheeks, her lip bleeding where it had been chewed to pulp. She’s guarding her arms and he knows what he will find if tugs up the sleeves. 

“It’s all my fault.” she whispers, her eyes dark with tears, “Steve’s hurt, all these machines are keeping him alive, and I did this.” she rubs her wrists compulsively through the sleeves.

Effortlessly, Bucky lifts her from the chair, arranging them both, and once again cradling her like, as he has done before. He rests the bionic arm against her hip, and cards his fingers through her chestnut tangles, winding the silken tresses around and rubbing the strands between his fingers. “Steve will be fine, you know he will. They’re just being cautious. This isn’t your fault Darcy. You can’t see an ambush from a trailer. There is no way you could ever have known. Steve knows, we all know you would never put us in danger, not willingly.”

She resists him, pulling away, trying to run, and Bucky just holds her tighter. 

“I told you, I’ll never let you go.”

**  
4.  
The windows rattled as she slammed cupboard doors; shattered glass littered the floor, scattered among bloodied foot prints. She ran hear hands over her face and into her hair, crimson streaks marring her clear skin. She tugged at her hair and howled, her screams violent, her chest heaving. Sinking down against the wall, she fists her hands in her wild curls, and the tears fall freely, mixing with the blood smeared across her face. The sun fades over the horizon, and the windows darken with twlight, and she is still. 

When Bucky returns, two days later than he anticipated; this is the sight that greets him. Flowers scattered around the room, broken glass scattered around her small apartment, peppered with blood, and Darcy, slumped against the counter, blood matted in her hair, her face smeared and sticky with blood, a crimson pool at her feet. Bucky panics, dropping to his knees beside her as she opens storm-gray eyes. He sighs with relief as he checks her over for wounds, finding only small gashes where the shattered glass had embedded itself in her small feet, and cuts on her fingers where she had tried to pick it up. 

“I broke the vase, and then I cut myself, and suddenly the whole world just fell apart. I’m a fucking mess Buck. I couldn’t fix it, so I broke everything else. Who does that.” It wasnt’ a question, but a quiet explanation whispered by a tired soul. She crawls into Bucky’s lap, her thin arms drapped around his neck, as he stands and carries her to the bathroom, drawing a warm bath for his broken little love. 

Just like the first time, he gently washes the blood from her; first her hands, then her face, and rinses the matted blood from her hair. When he is finished, the water is scarlet, but she is pure. When the blood is gone, there are no cracks; she is whole. 

Bucky will always wash the blood away.

**  
1.  
Sometimes the nightmares come; flashes of memory, or fallacy, he isn’t sure, but when they come, they frighten him. He holds so much shame inside. Why wasn’t he stronger, why didn’t he fight; he feels like it was his fault that the Russians destroyed his mind, when rationally, he knows it wasn’t. He sees fractured images of the things he was forced to do, the lives he was forced to irreparably damage, or extinguish. He can hear the screams, the pleading; his deeds are his demons, and they haunt his dreams. 

Darcy knows about demons; she has more than a few of her own. Every time the nightmares strike, she sits astride his hips and cradles his face in her warm hands, bringing him gently back to her. At first there is terror in his haunting blue eyes, and she can see the ghosts, but when she calls his name, the ghosts are gone, the demons run, and it’s just them. Each time it happens, he pulls her close, inhaling the scent of her, and he knows where he is. 

He is home.

Darcy is a shattered doll, and Bucky is a broken man, but when he washes away the blood and she chases away his demons, they’re whole.


End file.
